Daisies And Dragonskin
by Jenwryn
Summary: Hermione/Charlie. By request. You see, it's easier than doing it on a dragon... Rather fluffy, very good natured, and much more summery than the weather I'm enduring! Non-epilogue compatible. Shippy. R&R.


_Disclaimer: All publicly recognisable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. Original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. Not beta-read; don't jinx, although corrective spells are more than welcome to be cast in my direction._

_Dedication: For Buzzy mostly, but for Windrider too._

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**Daisies And Dragonskin**

Eavesdropping is an unpleasant habit. Not that most of us don't indulge in it every now and then, but there are certain points where we should put our hands over our ears and start whistling some Celestina Warbeck rather than listen further, primarily because the inherit problem with eavesdropping is the lack of context and two and two rarely make four. This was a finer point of etiquette that Ronald Weasley had as yet failed to grasp and so he was, as a result, standing at the kitchen sink with a look of astonishment on his face and his wand pointed motionlessly at a stack of dirty dishes, ears positively twitching with curiosity.

His brother Charlie's voice continued to waft in through the window on the warm summer breeze. "Well, it's easier than doing it on a dragon," he was murmuring playfully, and a girl's happy laugh followed quickly thereafter.

Ron snorted. Typical, just bloody typical. He gets lumped with pathetic housework while Charlie can toddle off to London and amuse himself, all because Charlie had gone and gotten himself injured again and so their Mum was taking it easy on him while he was home for holidays. Ron failed to see why she should After all, it wasn't as though Charlie didn't ask for it. Merlin's jodhpurs, he as good as jumped up and down waving a banner with the words _breathe fire on me baby_ emblazoned on it. Idiot job. But no, no, let's all treat poor Charlie like some kind of exciting hero and Ronniekins can do the sodding housework. And of course he'd picked up a girl. Although – it was kind of odd that he'd brought her home. That wasn't like Charlie at all. 

Ron craned his head out the window but his brother and the witch had already passed around the corner of the house, so that he caught sight of nothing more than a flick of the witches' summer dress. A dress? Hmm. She must be Muggle-born. Dad would be delighted if she hung around for dinner. Ron rolled his eyes at the thought and shot a burst of hot water and soapy bubbles onto the dishes. Bloody Charlie.

* * *

She was laughing up at him, clear brown eyes sparkling. Charlie laughed back and then shook his head, protesting in an earnest voice, "No, seriously, it really is easier on a broomstick than a dragon. I know you won't believe me because you're not a broomstick kind of girl but," he grinned broadly and shrugged, "well, look at it this way – broomsticks don't _generally _have minds of their own, they don't _usually _get the urge to burn you to a crisp, and I've never _yet _encountered one that imagined I'd go down nicely as a mid-afternoon snack." He laughed again, then sat abruptly on the lawn and motioned her down.

Hermione smiled and then sat down beside him on the grass. They were in the gardens behind the Burrow. Before them stretched a rather scruffy little orchard, filled mainly with crab-apples and rather stunted looking plum trees, and beyond that the steeple of Ottery St. Catchpole's church rising up into the blue sky. The garden beds around them were filled with a riot of summer colours and she breathed in their perfumes, and the gorgeous scent of freshly cut grass, with a happy little sigh.

He was looking at her expectantly.

"Oh, okay," she conceded, amused, "I'll believe you, after all, I'm sure you'd know better than I would. It's not like I've ever tried it. Come to think of it, I suppose I just never got the knack of broomsticks at all, really... though I dare say I'd fare far worse with a dragon. That one flight was probably enough for me. I wasn't all that fond of Buckbeak, either – in the air, at least – and let's not even start on Thestrals..." She shuddered slightly.

Charlie grinned and then glanced around the lawn, breaking off daisies from amongst the longer grass left at the edges of the flower beds where the cutter – probably Ron – had been less than exact. As he picked the daisies he asked conversationally, "You don't think it's a bit strange...?"

"What's a bit strange?"

To be honest, she was only half listening. She continued to breathe in the grassy smell and watched as the red-headed man pulled a knife from the dragonskin belt at his waist and started using its sharp point to slice at the daisies' stems with quick precision. It occurred to her suddenly that he was making a daisy chain and she felt a tingle of surprise. She hadn't seen someone make a daisy chain since she'd been in a Muggle primary school… and Charlie Weasley had nice hands to watch. Nimble like a silversmith's but brown and weather-worn.

He glanced at her with a pair of eyes disturbingly similar to his younger brother's, but that they had little creases around them, and said in a straightforward tone, "Well, that a witch who doesn't like flying has such a tendency to go for blokes who do."

She rose her head from her study of his hands and blinked at him in astonishment. "No I don't, I—" she started to protest, and then paused.

"Exactly," he chuckled, "Just look at you. Viktor Krum, only one of the greatest Seekers in the modern world. Harry Potter, who could probably rival him if he'd focus on Quidditch instead of becoming an Auror. Even my baby brother was on the team at school. And then didn't I hear something about you and Angus McDougall, the Montrose Magpies' Chaser?"

She made a small snorting nose. "Harry and I were never an item, Charlie. And as for Angus – honestly, I just had one small drink with the man, a fact that I made perfectly clear to Rita ruddy Skeeter at the time. I'll be glad when Harry finally gets Ginny pregnant and then the limelight can go back on them for a while."

"Keep your hair on, woman, it was only a question." He had been threading daisies with easy efficiency as she spoke and now he wound the circle to a close and, before she realised what he was up to, he'd placed it on her head like a crown, hands stroking down her hair slightly as he surveyed the effect.

Hermione's eyes widened and she reached up to touch the daisies' gently, golden pollen staining her fingers, and then whispered, "Oh, all right. I had a fortnight in Edinburgh with him."

"Eh?" He glanced up from cleaning his knife.

"With the Montrose Magpies' Chaster. Angus. I had a fortnight in Edinburgh with him. We went and saw the Loch Ness Kelpie and the place where Mary Queen of Scots was supposed to have met her lover. But you mustn't tell anyone; it didn't work out in the end anyway."

"Your secret is safe with me, my lady," he announced in a fair impersonation of Sir Cadogan, slid his knife into his belt, and then, with an index finger and thumb he picked up some strands of her hair and moved them to the other side of her face, tucking them behind her ear. The touch of his skin was quite rough but it made her twitch pleasantly.

"So," he continued in a thoughtful voice, "You and flyers...?"

She shrugged, a small smile playing on her lips. "What do you want to know? What I see in blokes on broomsticks? Or what they could possibly find appealing in an outspoken little bookworm who can barely get one off the ground?"

He gave her a searching look, then lay back against the grass beside her, hands folded on his broad chest and said bluntly, with a grin, "Oh, I think the answer to the second question is perfectly obviously. It's the first one I'minterested in."

She pinkened slightly as the compliment behind his words became clear and then replied in an uncertain voice, "I – I'm not entirely sure. Maybe it's all that nonsense about opposites attracting, but I've never had much time for that, personally. I mean, if you can't have a decent conversation with someone, what chance does a relationship have? That's where I went wrong with Ron—" She paused, aghast, and added rapidly, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Charlie murmured with amusement, "But keep going, I'm interested to hear the rest."

"Well... that's about it, actually. Ha, Lavender Brown – she took Divination so seriously – once claimed that I'm destined to spend my life with a wizard who loves flying 'but not above all else.'" She laughed, "Load of bosh of course, but I guess I must be on the hunt still."

He laughed too, eyes glancing up at her curiously as he did so, a glance that wasn't lost on her and she suddenly felt a little embarrassed by what she'd just said and worse, was hit by the realisation that the description fit him to a T. Wasn't that what Harry had told her once? That Charlie Weasley could have played for England if he hadn't gone off chasing dragons? She rather hoped he didn't think she was trying to be coy, and fell silent, suddenly unsure of what to say.

The summer breeze curled its toes around them there on the lawn and he shut his eyes where he lay. She was glad; it meant she could study him unimpeded. There was a softer set to his face when he relaxed, but the jaw was still strong and he had too many scars on his arms to be mistaken for anything but tough or suicidal – or perhaps the crazy blend of the two which so often characterises men with adventurous spirits. His hair was a shade darker than his siblings and at the open collar of his shirt she could see the black inked tips of what she was willing to make a guess were dragon's wings.

Her hair and the light cotton of her frock shifted lightly in the breeze. "What did you buy?" she asked out of the blue, glancing at the package that Charlie had carried with him. They'd met earlier that day in _Flourish And Blotts_, of all places, quite literally running into each other in the Muggle Mythology section. She'd made his burns sting by ramming into him, and he'd caught her hard at the temple with the parcel, so they'd invited each other to the cosy little pub around the corner to make up for the damage done over some butterbeer and a bite to eat. Time had gotten away from them.

"Presents, mostly," he admitted, blue eyes opening again. "Some hideously tedious poetry for Perce – and I mean _tedious_ – since it's his birthday at the end of next month. And some English novels for friends back in Romania to practise on, since they sent me here with a bloody great wish list. But I was in the Muggle Mythology section for myself, to be honest. I have a thing for Muggle stories about dragons." He looked slightly embarrassed, "I know that's daft because they write mostly a load of claptrap but – I still kind of like it."

"It allows you to view things from a different perspective?" she suggested tentatively.

He nodded, relieved. "Exactly."

"So... when do you go back to Romania with these books of yours?"

"In a fortnight. But I'm shopping now because on the weekend I'm heading to a nature reserve in Bulgaria, kind of en route so to speak."

Her eyes lit up. "Not the Srebarna Nature Reserve? I mean, the wizarding part, not the Muggle part?"

He looked mildly surprised, "You know it?"

"I've been there, it's marvellous, I – Viktor took me."

Charlie sat up and his eyes narrowed. "I remember Ron whining that Krum had invited you to Bulgaria. Merlin's beard, that was years ago, but I've never had such a rash of whinging letters in my life. I was rather under the impression that you never went. And – weren't you a bit young to go gallivanting half way across Europe?"

She raised her eyebrows, "Oh, and this from you? The fact is though, my Mum went too. It was a fantastic chance to share wizarding culture with her, and she quite liked Viktor, even if she did make the error of saying that Quidditch looked even sillier than football. And I – ah – might have forgotten to mention it when I went back to school, is all."

"And you went to the Srebana Nature Reserve?"

She smiled. "Look, I know my natural habitat is a library, but that doesn't mean I can't be persuaded to enjoy the great outdoors in bite-sized doses. Like here," she added with a satisfied sigh and glanced around. "I get sick of living in London sometimes. I'd forgotten how much I liked Devon. It's ages since I've been here. Since Ron and I split up, really."

"Yeah, " he looked at her, "I've been meaning to ask you about that as well."

"What for? That was swept under the rug a good while back."

"Well, only... if it makes it awkward?"

On impulse she decided not to speak for once. Almost six hours straight in the company of Charlie Weasley had made her curious to see how his mind worked. Because work it most obviously did. Oh, in reality all of the Weasley's had sharp brains, it was just some of them _used _them more than others – and in different ways. Look at George and Percy. As clever as could be but you couldn't get two more different ends products. And now Charlie had his eyes fixed upon her and she understood fully for the first time that they were only superficially like Ron's, because of the colour. In reality they were more like Ginny's, because under the mischief and hardworking pragmatism there lurked a sharp set of thoughts. Thoughts that she decided suddenly she would be rather interested in getting to know better.

He reached out and adjusted her daisy crown, which had slipped low on her forehead while she'd been observing him.

"Aren't you going to ask what I'm blathering about?" he inquired, "Or does the infamous Granger intellect extend to Legilimency?"

She smiled. "No. I'm just having nice suspicions instead."

He looked pleasantly surprised, if a little taken aback, by her answer, then smiled too. "_Really? _Well, there you go then. But if you don't ask, the nice suspicions have no way of becoming ever becoming nice realities, do they?"

"That's true," she mused, "So... does it make what awkward?"

"Does it make it awkward if I kiss you?" he asked simply.

She blinked, not quite having foreseen _such _a straightforwardly honest answer, then reminded herself that this was Charlie, and he dealt with dragons every day. Blunt honestly was going to be part of the packaged deal. She rather thought she liked it.

"I don't see why it should..." she whispered.

* * *

Ron Weasley stood in the laundry doorway and gaped slightly. Not only had Charlie brought some girl home, which was practically unheard of, but he was sitting there in the middle of the backyard in broad daylight _snogging_ her! Merlin's polkadot boxers, but that was as good as announcing his damn engagement if Mum were to catch sight of it! Ron's curiosity was unbearable.

"So," he called out, "I couldn't help but hear you talk... what's easier than doing it on a dragon?"

The pair on the lawn moved apart with a small jolt at being disrupted, and Charlie grinned at him over the girl's shoulder. Oddly familiar shoulder it was, too...

"Composing a letter, if you must know, big ears. I find it can be done on a broomstick in good weather, but a dragon's hopeless. What did _you _think I was talking about?"

Ron smirked and opened his mouth to answer, but fell dead silent in shock as the witch, still held loosely in his brothers hands, turned around and Hermione Granger rolled her eyes and said, "Honestly, Ronald, your mind doesn't _always _have to be in the gutter, does it?"

Oh, _Merlin!_


End file.
